


Dull Knives and White Hands

by calrissian18



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Jealousy, Kidnapped Draco, M/M, Minor Character Death, Stripper Draco Malfoy, Werewolf Draco Malfoy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-16
Updated: 2012-06-16
Packaged: 2017-11-07 21:05:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 19,322
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/435452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/calrissian18/pseuds/calrissian18
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Voldemort has finally been killed but not before unleashing his final hell on the wizarding world: a highly contagious lycanthropy virus that spreads through skin on skin contact.  Now a string of werewolf murders leaves the Wizengamot uneasy and it’s up to Aurors Weasley and Potter to solve the case before relations between those with the virus and those without deteriorate even further.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dull Knives and White Hands

**Author's Note:**

> Opening line is from A Fine Frenzy’s, “The World Without,” title from “Electric Twist.” I really hope I did this idea justice. Sometimes you have one that just comes to you and you know the telling of it could be really grand and you can only hope you’ve picked the right one. That’s where I am now. *fingers crossed* And, yes, I drew the wolfy face and, yes, that is why it is teh suck. *exaggerated bow* Many much thanks to my awesome-sauce beta, aelfrics_cat. Sorry I leaned on you so horribly for this one, love!
> 
> Also, Draco lies when asked what the Malfoy motto 'Sanctimonia Vincet Semper' means. Its actual translation is: Purity Always Conquers.

_~ What is worth living for is worth a fight ~_

The words of Harry’s curse echoed back to him in the cavernous chamber. He could hardly recognize his own voice in it. As it faded to a murmur, Harry couldn’t help but think it sounded sinister and seductive. _Avada Kedavra_ , it whispered like a secret. To Harry it sounded like _murderer_.

It should have gone quiet when the voice stopped whispering in his ear but something on the ground was rattling, coming for him. Harry squinted at it. The Elder Wand was rolling over the uneven stone floor, bouncing over pebbles and imperfections while it chugged mindlessly onward to meet him. The clatter was like a death knell and it made Harry want to cringe. It bumped against his trainer and eased back before slowing to a stop. Harry stared down at it.

A warm feeling of unreality wrapped him in a tight embrace. He hadn’t truly thought this day would come, or at least that he would live to see this side of it. A world without.

He bent down and scooped up the wand Voldemort had fought and defiled and killed for. Harry had expected it would be longer, that it would carve something deep in him or out of him to make him crave power, that it would whisper to him the way Harry’s own voice had, that it would say _killer_.

But, really, it was just a bit of wood.

He blinked at the man – thing - that had been slave to it. There was hardly anything left of him, just some pale body that was swathed in black robes and dead red eyes. There was nothing to him either, really. He was just a bit of flesh.

His death would bring celebration and Harry could almost taste it on the wind. The stuffy air of the chamber felt lighter, _cleaner_ , and he was sure when he went up, when he left this place of snakes and Slytherins, the day would be the brightest he could ever remember. His world felt sharper, even here. It reminded him of the first time he’d placed glasses on his nose and he realized he hadn’t been seeing anything as he was meant to.

He had been filled with a fragile sort of hope that maybe that hadn’t been the only thing he’d been wrong about. He hadn’t even made it out of the parking lot outside the optician’s office before his new world view had been crushed beneath the heel of Dudley’s trainer.

He could feel that same hope he’d felt then tentatively prickling the ends of his fingers now.

The floor lurched beneath Harry’s feet and he barely caught himself before he smacked his face into the chamber floor. The broken connection between his and Voldemort’s wands had caused this. The excess magic, having nowhere to go, had lashed out and attacked everything around them. The stability of the chamber was compromised and the whole of it seemed to be crumbling around him.

But Harry couldn’t bring himself to move. He wanted to stay in this moment – this moment where he was finished, complete. Prophecy fulfilled. And he could finally rest. He’d done his part. He’d done what he was meant to and he could stop running, even if only for a moment.

Fingers dug into his forearm and hauled him around gracelessly. Harry found himself staring into Hermione’s wide and haunted eyes – there was light in them and Harry couldn’t tell where it was reflecting from in the dark chamber. Her face was strained; streaked with lines of horror and relief and the starkness of the emotion dropped Harry abruptly back into reality. He found his feet at last and stumbled around on them before following her out at a sprint.

Ron was ahead of them, tearing away from his dead.

A whimper stopped Harry cold. It beat back off the walls of the chamber and the only thought in Harry’s blank mind was, _he had looked dead_. He could remember those Muggle horror films he’d snuck downstairs to watch while the Dursleys were out and the house was dark and silent but for its creaking. The killer always came back for a final scare. Always.

He turned back, trying to suss out the origin of the noise despite the chamber’s attempt to distort it. The loss of his pounding footsteps was obvious in this cavern that took every sound and amplified it. Hermione caught him by the sleeve like a fish on a hook. Her face was pleading and she begged, “Harry, we can’t stop.” The Chamber of Secrets seemed to ripple inward in agreement.

The sound came again and this time Harry was sure he wasn’t the only one who had heard it. He reached Voldemort’s body and knew without knowing that he wasn’t what Harry was looking for. There was no movement there. There was someone else here, someone who was meant to be here somehow. He squinted off at the far end of the passage. “There’s someone still down there,” he told her.

Ron was beside her, behind her, and it was two against one. “Whoever it is, they’ll get themselves out.” His voice was gruff and unrepentant and Harry looked into his dirt-streaked face and knew that Ron was changed. He wasn’t the lanky boy Harry had joked about with in Divination; he was a man who knew death as intimately as anyone could know it. Whatever connection they’d had between them felt broken.

Harry took a step back from him.

Ron’s eyes went hard and his jaw clenched. When he spoke his voice was tight and it looked like it was a Herculean effort not to sound condescending. “We’ve no idea how long the chamber will hold. Going back isn’t an option.”

“It’s a choice,” Harry said quietly. “I’m not asking you to make it with me.” He squared his shoulders. “I’m not leaving anyone down here to rot.”

Ron’s face was growing redder and he snarled, “For all you know it’s a Death Eater back there. Do you really want to die protecting a murderer?”

Harry stared down at his trainers. He flexed his toes in the leather and his soles made crackling sounds as they shifted on the gravel beneath them. “Then I’ll be in good company, won’t I?” Harry said, and that shut Ron up. The three of them stood in a triangle as a truth they hadn’t quite grasped sunk into them the way it already had with Harry. He was a murderer too. And, sure, it was different, except in all the ways it wasn’t.

“I don’t remember you searing some lunatic’s Mark into your arm,” Ron retorted once he’d shaken off Harry’s revelation.

“Then you go,” Harry burst out. “No one else has to die now.” He spread out his hands. “It doesn’t have to be this way now.” Didn’t they see that ‘Death Eater’ didn’t mean anything anymore? They had nothing left to follow. This was his new world – his world without – and you didn’t build new worlds on the backs of dead men. He could finally live a life without death in it and he was determined to see it happen.

When the sound came again it had morphed from a whimper into an agonized mewling and Harry did a runner. He didn’t care if Ron and Hermione meant to stop him. They could try but he wouldn’t let them and he didn’t care how he had to ensure it. He was moving too fast and too slow all at once, he couldn’t stop on a dime if he ran into a trap but he might not get there in time either. His breath cut up through his lungs and beat against his ears so loudly that he almost didn’t hear Ron’s and Hermione’s feet falling heavy on the stone behind him as they followed.

He found he’d always known they would.

He ran without waiting for them, without slowing, and he splashed through thin puddles of water, the bottom of his robes growing heavier with each step as though they meant to hold him back.

There. Between the feet of Salazar Slytherin’s statue – no doubt meant to draw out Harry’s memory of a diary-addled Ginny – a soggy heap was waiting for him. It was wrapped up in robes and topped with unmistakable white-blond hair. It was Malfoy. “It’s Malfoy,” Harry stated the obvious as his brain tried to fit in this new knowledge. It kept rejecting it. How could it be Malfoy? He was a Death Eater; he was protected from Voldemort’s side. It was the Order he had to fear and they would never do _this_.

Malfoy writhed, his face pressed into the stone and the wetness. Pain lanced through his middle and he clenched his pale hands into his robes. Harry took a step forward only to find that he’d acquired an anchor.

Hermione’s hand was claw-like over his elbow and now that Harry noticed it, he could _feel_ it too. Her grip was so tight it was beginning to bruise his skin. Her anxious gaze was locked on Malfoy and Harry didn’t know what to make of the shadows passing over her face.

“Hermione,” he tried softly.

She started something terrible but her gaze still didn’t waver from Malfoy.

Harry peered into Malfoy’s face with her. His eyes were closed and scrunched tight in what looked like pain. He was giving off a steady shiver and his eyebrows formed a deep V on his forehead while his mouth opened and closed in silent agony. Harry reached out a shaky hand to grip Malfoy’s shoulder, to hold onto something solid in the chaos but Hermione’s nails dug in through his robes and pinched. Harry cringed in pain and twisted back to look at her.

She was shaking her head almost mindlessly and biting her lower lip. “Don’t touch him,” she mumbled quietly and it sounded like the start of a chant.

Harry tried to see what she did but when he looked down all that met his gaze was red-tinted water lapping at the tops of his trainers and his stomach churned. He swallowed past the lump in his throat and dropped down next to Malfoy, his knees not feeling too supportive anymore. He dragged Hermione with him on his way down, as her grip hadn’t loosened any. “Malfoy, can you hear me?” He felt a bit like a prat asking but Malfoy hadn’t acknowledged them yet, not even to ask for help.

He tried to yank his arm out of Hermione’s hold to check on Malfoy properly but she didn’t seem interested in letting go of her treasure. When he looked at her it was to find her still shaking her head.

“Hermione!”

Hermione blinked, her face ashen, and, slowly, she raised up one hand and pointed straight at Malfoy. Or, more accurately, at Malfoy’s neck. There, in a small circle just below his ear, two overlapping Ws had been burned into his skin.

Harry fell back on his heels. It was just a tall tale that Moody had told to scare them and to keep their minds on war. It wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.

“He’s infected,” Hermione said starkly.

That was wrong. It had to be. “You can’t know that,” Harry argued instinctively. If Malfoy was infected then that meant – it meant there was no choice. It meant the chamber would collapse and Malfoy would still be in it. It meant Harry’s world without was crushed beneath whatever bully’s heel. It meant Malfoy would die.

“We have to leave.” Hermione’s voice was small and Harry could tell she hadn’t wanted to be the one to say it. And she shouldn’t have been. The girl who could lobby for house-elf rights couldn’t find it in her to care that much about another human being.

The chamber shook its agreement. “I don’t accept that,” Harry said, jutting out his chin. That couldn’t be the answer. It _couldn’t_.

Hermione didn’t seem to have it in her to argue that Malfoy’s life didn’t have any value to it – Harry didn’t know he could forgive how close she had got to it either – but Ron did. His expression was positively _hateful_. “You would have us infect ourselves for _him_ , wouldn’t you?” he accused.

Harry shook his head adamantly. “I would do it,” he answered back, voice small.

“You know he wouldn’t do the same for any one of us. He would let us die down here and we should do the same.”

And there it was. The break. Harry watched the last of the Ron he had known bleed away from that once familiar face. Ron may have been able to do it – to kill Malfoy through some twisted sense of self-preservation – but Harry couldn’t. And he knew Ron’s was the better, the _smarter_ choice, but he didn’t have that in him. “I’ll meet you up there as soon as I can,” Harry said, face set.

Ron stared at him for a long moment and understanding passed fleetingly over his features. He grabbed onto Harry’s shoulder and squeezed. The gesture said what they couldn't – or wouldn't – say as blokes: _I’m sorry_ , _I don’t want you to die_ , _I’m still glad all the other compartments were full that day on the Express_.

“Lupin!” Hermione broke up the moment with her personalized ‘eureka.’ 

Harry and Ron shared a heavy look and Harry broke away to command, “Go then.”

Hermione nodded fiercely and grabbed Ron around. They ran down the path as fast as their feet would take them. Harry sank down next to Malfoy and hid his face in his hands. He was half-afraid if he saw the chamber start to collapse, he would forget his nobility and run – without Malfoy. He wasn’t about to let that happen. But he wasn't going to pretend that it was easy to sit beside a boy he hated and wait for the world to come down.

He peeked out through his fingers at Malfoy. His face was still crumpled up in pain and he was covered in sweat that Harry would bet his vault was cold. His fingers itched to reach out and smooth over Malfoy’s furrowed brow, to offer that sorry comfort, but he stayed himself. The best he could do was promise, “I won’t leave you.” And he meant it too.

Finding Malfoy that day in the chamber had killed all his visions of the future that had been tentatively pulling together to form plans. Because the future wasn’t going to be bright and shiny and full of possibility. Because the war wasn’t over. Not really.

Nine years later and Harry’d forgot he’d ever thought his life might not have death in it.

“Another one,” Ron barked, toeing the body over with his reinforced boot.

Harry squatted down and blinked, a bit disturbed by how _not_ disturbed he was while looking at the entrails winding out a pattern on the cement. It looked a bit like a morbid star chart. Harry stared back up into the man – _boy’s_ – dead eyes. He couldn’t have been more than eighteen. Harry remembered that age. He’d still believed things could turn around then. Worse, he’d believed that he would be the one to turn them around – not that he’d ever admit that now.

He chewed his lower lip and glanced up at Ron. “You’re sure?” He squinted, holding his hand up against the cascading light that glinted off Knockturn Alley’s sign. It was a hot day and Harry was afraid their boy might bake right into the ground before they could finish processing the scene. He already smelt like a mix of shit and decay. The last thing they needed was burning flesh in that blend.

Ron made a stark silhouette in the glare. “Look for yourself. Either an Erumpent found its way into Knockturn or one of those bloody new gen decided his insides would look better decorating the pavement.”

Harry stood up. “You don’t know it’s the same wolf. You don’t know it’s a wolf at all.”

Ron shrugged. “Maybe not.” His face was hard. It always was these days. “But I’m not one for coincidences. This is the third murder in as many weeks. We’ve given it the benefit of the doubt. It’s a spree now, Harry. Not any type of coping.”

“It,” Harry repeated in a mutter, turning away from Ron. His eyes fell on a poster across the way with the same anti-wolf rhetoric he’d been hearing for the better part of a decade.

Ron saw where he was looking. “They’ve got the right idea. _Protect yourself from the new gen_ ,” he read off. “ _You’ve got to be proactive rather than reactive_.”

“You agree with this… propaganda?” It was the nicest word Harry could think of to explain the bigotry and hatred that came out of the Coalition for Responsible Identification and Segregation of Infected PersonS – whose sole purpose seemed to be to create what they stood for: C.R.I.S.I.S.

“They’re attacking us out in the open now, Harry,” Ron growled angrily, jerking his chin at the boy who had his guts scattered in the street. “They’re too dangerous, even without putting the murders into play. They _can’t_ interact safely with us, whether they want to or not. They infect everything they touch.”

“And the Coalition is just spreading fear! They’re called _crisis_ for fuck’s sake. They’re creating panic out of peace.”

“You call this peace?” Ron said nastily with a pointed look at the dead boy. Harry followed his gaze. Before long they would have to close the kid’s eyes so they wouldn’t start to boil in his head.

Harry’s mouth tightened. “So, what, round them all up and put them out of their misery for something they have no control over? I remember a group of people who would have done that with me and Hermione for something we had no control over either.”

Ron snorted. “Comparing me to the Death Eaters now just because I want to feel safe?”

Harry’s nostrils flared and he put his face up in Ron’s. “Don’t you think that’s what they wanted too? They felt like the Muggle-borns and the half-bloods were taking over their world. They just wanted to feel _safe_ too.” Ron’s face was red and growing redder and Harry backed off, running a hand through his hair. “I know you’re pissed. I know Ginny—”

“Don’t,” he cut Harry off sharply. “Don’t you talk about her. Don’t you ever talk about her.”

Harry quirked his lips in a cruel smile, disbelief sinking deep into his bones. “Just remember, she’s one of them now. Anything you’d do to them, you’d do to her too.”

“The only reason she got infected is because she was trying to help those animals,” Ron hissed. “They deserve whatever they get.”

Harry sneered at him. “She’d be so proud to see that her poor fortune has turned her big brother into a bigot.”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Ron looked older than Harry had ever seen him. He dragged a hand down his face and said softly, “Leave it, Harry.”

Harry gave a stiff nod. They’d had this argument before and Harry knew they’d have it again. This was the one thing neither of them could bend on. Ron was still a good man; he’d just been through the ringer one too many times. Fred was dead, Bill was being discriminated against worse than ever – despite the fact that he wasn’t a full-fledged wolf and was a first gen besides – and Ginny, poor Ginny’s dreams had all went up in smoke because of her kind heart and a hole the size of a pinprick.

It had effectively ended their rocky relationship and the Holyhead Harpies had rescinded their invite to try-out for the next year’s team only two days after the news had spread. Ginny had been devastated and moved to Australia to one of the topmost new gen research facilities not even a month later. Harry suspected it was mainly to get away from Molly and her sad eyes.

Harry still didn’t stop trying to change Ron’s mind.

As they pushed their way through the gathered crowd, a few people took up a call to the effect that when they found who was responsible, they should wait until he turned and flay him alive. Then at least they’d have a pretty pelt to show for their troubles. Harry sneered, unable to believe that people who had _magic_ could be so bloody small-minded.

“I can handle this on my own,” Harry tried delicately, holding his coat up over his head as they stood on the stoop to the club. The skies had opened up later that afternoon and the rain was beating down on them so hard that it seemed as if it meant to take a few inches off. It blurred the lines of the railing next to Harry’s hand and water lapped at the gutter while the rain pitter-pattered on the pavement, hitting hard enough to bounce back up.

It was beyond humid and the air felt suffocating. Harry’s skin was slick no matter how many Drying Charms he wasted on it.

“I’m more than capable of doing my job,” Ron answered back gruffly.

Harry gave a curt nod that didn’t really concede anything. He stared up at the sign above his head. His glasses were fogging and dotted with rain and he took them off and wiped them with the driest bit of shirt he could find. He shoved them back onto his face. They were dry now but blurred in swirl patterns. The entrance and stoop were on a short, diagonal wall. Dead with Hunger filled the space just above the weatherworn door. Next to the curved handle was a poster.

The cobblestone wall made it uneven and it punched out on the left where a particularly aggressive rock jutted forward. Someone must have had the foresight to cast an _Impervius_ on it as the paper was still as crisp and clean as the day it had been stuck up there. Two yellow eyes stared out at him from the middle of the page and, even without the fur, Harry knew that they were distinctly not human. There was something canine about the look they held and Harry thought it might be because of the _hunger_ in them. It was captioned on either side of the drawing.

**YOU CAN LOOK**

  


**BUT TOUCHING WILL COST YOU  
MORE THAN A GALLEON**

Underneath that was very fine print that read:

__

_Dead with Hunger is an institution created exclusively for those with the “werewolf gene.” All of our employees are carriers of the highly contagious Lycanthropy Pestilentia._

_Customers enter at their own risk._

_Dead with Hunger will **not** be held liable for any poor decisions made by those who choose to patronize our establishment._

_You have been warned._

“I’ll do the talking, yeah?” Harry clarified, trying to sound like a friend, as he finally pushed open the door.

A flicker of cold understanding flitted across Ron’s face for a moment before he sunk back into his general languor with a shrug.

Harry shook off his coat and hung it on the rack by the door. Ron steadfastly shoved his hands into the pockets of his own soaking cloak. He moved off to the side, trailing a rivulet of water behind him and staring at the empty stage with blank eyes. Harry turned towards the bar and saw white-blond hair that he hadn’t laid eyes on in nearly ten years. That last time was still one of the worst memories Harry had. “Malfoy,” he barked.

The man at the bar turned slightly. His lips curled into a low smirk as though he’d expected no one else and he took a last sip of his drink before facing Harry fully. “Potter,” he returned with a sneer. Something about hearing that voice again sent a shiver down Harry’s spine.

The years had not been kind to Draco Malfoy. His usually sleek hair was cut short and rumpled and it had none of its former sheen. He was upsettingly thin – and Harry knew just how much as he was wearing nothing but black trousers. He had dark circles under his grey eyes and while his skin was still pale, it no longer looked healthy. The tips of his fingers danced across the rim of his glass and Harry noticed the dirt under his fingernails.

He shook himself out of watching the way Malfoy’s breaths moved the muscles under his collarbone and said with a raised lip, “Never would’ve thought of this for you.”

Malfoy chuckled darkly. It made Harry’s skin crawl. “You and my father finally have something in common.”

Harry plucked the picture of the deceased boy out of his robe pocket and slid it across the bar towards Malfoy. It was bent and worn away in those places where the creases had occurred. It was soggy too and stuck a little on the slick bar counter. “Do you recognize him?”

Malfoy reached over the bar and dragged up a bottle of Ocky Rot. He yanked out the spout and drank straight from the bottle, saying bleakly, “We get a lot of customers.” 

Harry’s jaw tightened and he bumped his fist down next to the photo. “Maybe it’ll help if you actually look at the picture,” he pointed out through gritted teeth.

“Perhaps,” Malfoy conceded with a shrug. “I suppose we’ll never know,” he added with a cheeky grin that didn’t affect his dead eyes.

Harry’s own narrowed and he squared his shoulders to face Malfoy properly. Malfoy obliged him and turned as well, displaying the scars on his chest that Harry had left there himself. At least Malfoy was wearing trousers, even if – Harry now realized – they were leather. “I can charge you with obstructing an Auror investigation, Malfoy,” Harry told him forcefully, looking at Malfoy’s chest rather than his face. His eyes flickered to Malfoy’s forearm. The Mark was still there, still as stark and clear as the day Harry had first seen it on him.

He looked back at the scars that crisscrossed Malfoy’s torso. He’d left his mark too. He’d written on Malfoy in permanent marker: **Property of Harry Potter**. Voldemort’s Mark looked pathetic next to his epic. Harry almost wondered if that was why that spell had been ready on his lips that day. He hadn’t even remembered thinking it before it burst out of his mouth. Some subconscious part of him couldn’t let Malfoy walk around, owned by Voldemort, not without contesting it – using the same medium Voldemort had: Malfoy's skin.

Malfoy placed the bottle down on the counter with careful precision and gave an ungainly lurch in Harry’s direction. “Let’s see who’s the quicker draw,” he drawled, grey eyes flashing silver.

Harry took a step back despite himself, disgust raising his lip. “Your disease isn’t a joke, _werewolf_.” Something dark flashed across Malfoy’s face and he sneered. He turned back around and pushed the hair out of his face with a rough hand. Harry couldn’t let him have the upper hand like that. He couldn’t let Malfoy know he’d got one over on him by using his disease against him. He leaned over Malfoy, careful not to touch him, and hissed in his ear, “Don’t think I don’t know what you are, Malfoy. You’re a stripper, a whore, a _wolf_.” It was a strange world when that last was the biggest insult. Malfoy flinched and Harry’s grin glinted in the low light of the bar. “You take those sick werechasers to your back room and you fuck them so they’ll get infected. Don’t think I don’t know it. How much do they pay you for it?”

Malfoy turned away from him violently. He snatched the picture up off the bar. “I’ve never seen him before,” he spat, tossing the photo back at Harry, clearly eager to get him gone.

Harry pulled back and said thinly, “I’d prefer if you answered these questions under Veritaserum.”

Malfoy stuck his chin out defiantly but the attitude was definitely feigned now. “Too damned bad, Potter. Not even for wolves is that compulsory.”

Harry backed Malfoy up against the bar, trapping him in the cage of his arms, forcing Malfoy to hold his breath just so they wouldn’t accidentally brush skin. “This is the third werewolf-related death in as many weeks,” Harry hissed, “I don’t have to tell you the Ministry isn’t too keen on following the rulebook at the moment, especially when it comes to your _kind_.”

“One might think you _wanted_ to get infected, Potter,” Malfoy threatened, a spark of something lighting up his eyes. It was the only emotion Harry had seen reach them yet. He stepped away and Malfoy straightened up, no longer looking so broken. “And we’re the monsters, are we?” He sneered. “I’m honestly surprised it took you this long to come to us.”

Harry reached behind the bar and found a bottle of Ogden’s Best. He pulled off the spout just as Malfoy had done and drank straight from the mouth. Drinking on the job was strictly prohibited but Harry was feeling more than a little like an arse for that last move. He was bouncing from one extreme to the next as he always had around Malfoy and now he was old enough to drink that problem into submission. “We thought it was a random occurrence at first,” Harry admitted. “A fledgling wolf without any guidance.”

Malfoy snorted. “And it must be one of us.”

“A werewolf harem,” Harry retorted. “Where else would you think to go for possible suspects?”

“It’s _not_ a harem,” Malfoy snapped, breathing hard. He was quiet for a moment before he slammed the palm of his hand down on the bar. Harry had no doubt that Malfoy was imagining it was his face. Harry saw Ron’s head snap around from his periphery. “What would you have me do, Potter?” he demanded. “Where _should_ I spend my days? Holed up inside so I can’t spread my disease? We have warnings posted at every entry and the customers know precisely what they’re getting.” He thrust out his chin and looked away with his lip raised. “This is better than nothing.”

Harry squinted and looked down at the floor. “I wasn’t judging—”

“The hell you weren’t,” Malfoy cut him off angrily.

Harry shook his head to get them back on track. “Listen, Malfoy, do you have any new recruits? Anyone who’s been acting suspiciously?”

“No,” Malfoy said sourly, adding nastily, “and I wouldn’t tell you even if we did. All we have is each other here, Potter.”

“Malfoy—” Harry started heatedly.

But Malfoy had something to say and he wasn't about to let Harry get in the way of it. “Don’t think I don’t know how you see me. I went from _Malfoy_ to _infected_. You’re not welcome here, Potter.”

Malfoy’s words were still ringing in his ears as he sat through the mandatory Auror meeting and they attempted to hash out a strategy to deal with the new gen case. The Aurors were getting nowhere and a lot of that had to do with them meeting the same roadblock Harry and Ron had. Harry listened for a moment longer before he finally cut through all the yelling.

He stood up and stated the problem outright. “None of them in their right mind are going to talk to us. At best, we enforce a law that deprives them of some of their most basic rights. At worst, well, we all know those on the force who can get a bit _overzealous_ when dealing with their community.”

There were a few shifty glances around the conference room. Ron’s face gave away nothing.

Kingsley cleared his throat and attention swung around his way. “What do you suggest then, Auror Potter?”

Harry took a deep breath. “I know we don’t have any wolves on the force—”

An outburst of edgy justifications swallowed up his next words.

“Of course not!” Higgins put in stoutly. His declaration was nearly run over with Collins’ tense, “How could we when they infect everything they touch?” Johnson piped up weakly, “Completely impractical, we have to bar ‘em from Ministry positions.”

Harry held up a hand and the roar dulled to a few scattered murmurs. “As I said, I know we don’t have any on the force, but perhaps we could draft one in to work on our behalf, someone these people actually trust and respect.”

A few of the Aurors in the room seemed to know where Harry was going with this and he could tell from the way they were suddenly strung tight that they were as happy about it as he was.

Harry huffed out a resigned breath. “Broderick Scarborough.”

The roar was back, full of protests and denouncements, and this time Harry didn’t try to calm them. He slumped back into his seat, suddenly exhausted.

Broderick Scarborough was an asshat. He had risen to fame as the face of the new gen a few years back and he defended the title fiercely. He was painfully handsome and was as aware of it as Lockhart had been. And while Lockhart may have been an opportunist and a sleaze, he was still relatively harmless. Scarborough on the other hand had a mind like a whip, the charm to lead and a violent ambition that made him as selfish as Dudley on his best days. Harry had hated him on sight. He oozed pomposity and cheap self-interest.

“What can I do for the Auror’s finest this afternoon, gentlemen?” he simpered while his assistant poured them tea out of some fancy Japanese kettle that likely cost more than the entire Auror department’s budget.

Harry’s fingers clenched on the arms of his chair.

Ron cleared his throat. “We were hoping you might be interested in assisting the _Auror’s finest_ with this recent new gen unpleasantness.” Ron could really pull off that politician-speak when he wanted to. Everyone who cared to know knew he’d be Head of the Department before long. He’d set up shop for a few years, streamline the bureau from the inside out and then he’d make a, likely successful, bid for Minister.

Scarborough’s frown was exaggerated. “Ah, yes,” he said in a grim tone, “I’d heard about that.” He flashed them a sharp smile, his white teeth sparkling at them. There was something calculating behind it that made Harry’s stomach knot up. His eyes narrowed slightly and he leaned back in his Italian leather chair. “I don’t see how I could possibly be of assistance.” He brought the tips of his steepled fingers up to his mouth in false concern. “I don’t have any experience in interrogation techniques, gentlemen.” His grin was downright wolfish now and Harry was distinctly unsettled.

“As you might imagine, working this case means interviewing a fair few of your brethren.” Scarborough’s eyes were beady and focused on Ron’s mouth as he spoke. He splayed his hand out over his desk and leaned forward intently. Harry thought he might use some kind of clear varnish on his nails. “The new gen doesn’t harbor much love for those who don’t number among them. We were hoping you might be willing to smooth things over between the parties. Act as an intermediary, so to speak. Work with us.”

Scarborough leaned into his chair, threw back his head and gave a robust laugh. “Oh, but that’s priceless!” he cried, wiping his eyes. “You want me to sell out my kin, trick them into trusting you so you can pin a murder on one of them.” His laughter died away with ease. His gaze grew shrewd and clever while a dark hand caressed his stubbled jaw. “And what’s in it for me then?”

“What do you want, Scarborough?” Harry barked. Ron shot him a sharp look. They’d agreed before they’d ever entered Scarborough’s poncy office that Ron would take point since he’d proved he could keep a calmer head when it came to the prick.

Scarborough crooked a finger over his lips and grinned, mulling it over. Finally he leaned forward, his suit’s waistcoat pulling tight over a taut stomach. “I want a favor. Unrestricted and backed by the whole of the Ministry’s power. To be collected whenever I choose.”

“We can’t promise—”

“Done,” Harry bit out, rising from his seat without making eye contact with Scarborough or Ron.

Harry stared into a jar that seemed to contain some kind of moving spine. He tapped at it diligently. “Scarborough’s an asshat,” Hermione said in frustration, blowing frizzy hair out of her face as she switched from one book to another. Both looked like they could take a suspect out with a single swing. “He’d rather get his face out there than actually do anything for the new gen.”

Harry nodded, heaving a massive sigh and shooting her a sideways glance. He would be surprised if she’d showered in the last three days. Ron was waiting outside. “I know, Hermione,” Harry agreed, “and I’d rather it was you too but, the fact is, they still don’t trust you.” Hermione flushed, obviously not thinking he’d be able to work out the subtext of her comment. He shrugged his shoulders. “Scarborough’s one of them. Even if he is a pompous dick.”

Hermione looked up from her research and Harry reared back a bit. Her eyes were bright and she looked determined. “It isn’t fair what the Ministry’s doing to them, Harry.”

Harry cared, he did, just not as much as Hermione. “I know,” he said, even though he didn’t. The Ministry’s campaign against the new gen was being carried out in secret and silence. A person had to go looking for their fear and hate and Harry didn’t question enough to start digging. C.R.I.S.I.S., however, wore their fear and hate on their sleeves and they drew the public eye – despite not having a tenth of the power the Ministry did.

Scarborough _was_ proving to be an asset. Unfortunately he was also proving to be utterly unreliable. He would nance off with new gen prostitutes if the job got too boring or his muse got too ‘downtrodden.’ Floozy women were getting to be something of a staple in their interviews and Harry was rapidly reaching the end of his rope.

They needed someone to keep Scarborough in line, another new gen-er that he would have to act like a good little spokesperson around. Someone he would have to impress, knowing if he didn’t that the consequence might be that they’d run and tell tales. No new gen would listen to the Aurors should _they_ tell tales as their sole purpose – according to the new gen – was to fleece them of their rights and liberties.

Harry had just the person in mind.

“How’s Australia treating you then?”

Ginny was frowning. She looked tired. “This isn’t a social call, Harry. What do you want?”

“I need a favor.”

Ginny rolled her eyes. “Color me surprised.”

Harry chose to ignore that. “Someone’s going around killing people, a new gen. They won’t talk to us, for obvious reasons, and we enlisted Broderick Scarborough to get us in.”

Ginny’s eyebrows jumped. “That was a stroke of genius.”

“Thanks,” Harry said cheekily. Ginny glowered, obviously not thinking for a moment it could have been his idea. “Trouble is, Scarborough’s unpredictable and he skives off whenever he fancies. We need someone, one of his kind, to stay on his arse.”

Ginny looked utterly unimpressed and her lips curled unattractively. “I should have known. You want to use me for my disease.”

“Not use—I don’t know anyone else,” Harry burst out, frustrated.

“Then I suggest you start trolling the wolves for friends,” she bit out nastily before shutting off the Floo connection with him. Harry knew he deserved that. He had been meaning to break things off with her – again – when she’d got infected. She had automatically argued that it was because of the disease and the ‘difficulty of dealing with her’ that he’d ended it. Harry had pled a case of bad timing and, though Harry would bet his entire vault that she believed him, she needed someone to be the villain. Harry would play that part for her. It was the least he could do.

He fell back on his heels and scrubbed a hand over his forehead, trying to force a solution into his brain. And, just like that, a poor excuse for one shuffled out.

“Oi, Malfoy!” Harry shouted, pounding on the door to Malfoy Manor a third time.

It swung open to reveal a bored-looking Malfoy standing on the other side, drink in hand. “Generally when one doesn’t answer it’s because one isn’t interested in the company offered.”

“Yeah, yeah, blah, blah, you’re a nancy ponce and I’m a mangy half-blood,” Harry rattled off hurriedly, gesturing past Malfoy. “Can we be done with all that yet? I’ve got a proposition.”

Malfoy sighed heavily but beckoned Harry inside with his tumbler. He shut the door behind him and said, “The study is just down the hall, the first door on the left. I must consult with Tizzy about having it stocked with heaps more liquor.”

Harry rolled his eyes but followed Malfoy’s direction regardless. If possible, Malfoy Manor was even more posh and pretentious than Harry remembered. The walls were made of stone that had probably been carried from some far off quarry on the backs of Muggle slaves and the wood floor had been waxed within an inch of its life. A wobbly, distorted Harry blinked back up at him, no doubt trying to communicate via Morse code that he should run for it. Large portraits of past Malfoys with snooty features lined every other wall between rooms. On each intervening outcropping was a silk banner with the Malfoy crest on it.

Two dragons stood on either side of a shield, a great ‘M’ placed smack in its middle while snakes sprouted from its top. It was green and silver of course. Along the bottom it read: ‘ _Sanctimonia Vincet Semper_ ,’ which Harry was sure was some kind of pureblood nonsense.

He turned up his nose at it before entering the study, which was furnished in warm colors that complemented the crackling fireplace. The mantle above it had a few, undoubtedly posh and notorious, statuettes. There were two armchairs facing a matching loveseat across an oriental rug and a glass bottom coffee table. The chairs looked comfortable and soft. At the far end of the room was a desk that was perfectly organized. A green placemat had a stack of parchments placed dead center on it, not a page out of place. A waiting quill dipped in a bottle of ink sat to the left and a lamp to the right.

A large portrait with the caption ‘ **Abraxas Malfoy** ’ hung behind the straight-backed chair. Under that was a shelf filled with nothing but expensive-looking liquors. Along the sidewalls were rows upon rows of books. Harry felt massively out of place.

“Who are you?”

Harry jumped. The sharp-faced man with the gray hair and the sour expression from the portrait had woken up and looked so alert that Harry had doubts he was ever asleep. “Er, I’m a guest of your grandson’s.” Harry pushed the thought that he remembered a snapshot of a conversation he’d overheard almost eleven years ago between Malfoy and Slughorn – in which he’d learned that Malfoy’s grandfather was named Abraxas and had died after contracting Dragon Pox – to the back of his mind.

He'd had no idea that he’d held onto that for so long.

“Pureblood?” Abraxas Malfoy asked with a great sniff.

Harry narrowed his eyes. “I don’t think I’ll answer that if it’s all the same to you.”

The portrait gave a hacking sort of laugh before smiling wide. His teeth were yellow. “Afraid you just have, boy. Draco wouldn’t have answered the door for a Mudblood, must be a mutt then.”

“What a charming generation you were,” Harry muttered nastily.

“Shooting the breeze with Grandfather Abraxas, were you?” Malfoy asked mockingly.

Harry jumped a second time, this time at Malfoy’s reappearance. He looked as if he’d got his drink topped off and Harry noticed a few of the bottles on the bar had gone from half-full to ready to burst. “Sure I was,” Harry said sourly. “We’ve a lot in common.”

Malfoy grinned and Harry’s stomach performed a slow sort of roll that left him feeling unsettled. “Has he picked apart your ancestry yet?” Malfoy had the poor taste to look amused.

“We hadn’t quite got there.” Harry glowered. “What’s the family slogan mean by the way? _Death to the impure_ is my guess.”

Malfoy chuckled. “Hardly anything so unpleasant.” He took a long drink. “It simply means a Malfoy above all else.”

“I expected something about mongrel heads on pikes in there,” Harry said, throwing a dark look towards Malfoy’s grandfather.

“You never did have much regard for the Malfoy family,” Malfoy agreed unkindly.

“I don’t have any regard for bigots,” Harry retorted.

Malfoy’s eyes lit up. “Now that’s interesting, isn’t it? Considering the company you keep.”

Harry rolled his eyes, not rising to the bait. “I’m actually here to help you and your kind.” Malfoy let out a knowing little huff but Harry plowed on before he could comment. “It’s to do with the dead bloke I asked you about a few days ago. The wolf is still loose and we enlisted Broderick Scarborough to assist in our investigation.” Malfoy was listening raptly now. “Unfortunately he’s not the most reliable agent we’ve ever used. We need one of his kind to force him into good behavior.”

Malfoy laughed and tongued the top row of his teeth. “You want me to be his watch-wolf.” He chuckled darkly. “We’re all just pawns for you to use, aren’t we?”

Harry was getting a bit ruffled now. This was the second time he'd been told he was using the new gen. He was trying to _help_ them, damn it! “Think of it this way then, Malfoy,” Harry growled, “you get to be involved in our investigation first-hand.”

Malfoy’s interest appeared to be piqued. “Meaning?”

“Meaning you get to interview the wolves we talk to with Scarborough. You’ll be effectively leading the investigation when it comes to dealing with the new gen community. Isn’t your kind always squawking about unfair conditions?” Harry dampened his lips. “This way you can be sure that nothing underhanded is going on.”

“You’ll defer to me,” Malfoy clarified.

“To you and Scarborough, yes,” Harry confirmed.

“All right. You’ve got yourself a mercenary, Potter.”

Harry stared at Malfoy’s drinking hand, thinking this was something one might seal with a handshake. He turned away and, clearing his throat, said a hasty goodnight before the temptation to reach out and take Malfoy’s hand got any harder to ignore.

  


Malfoy and Scarborough met Harry and Ron outside the conference room at half eight the next morning. Well, Malfoy did. Scarborough strolled in around nine fifteen with some bullshit story about a meeting that ran long. Harry looked up from the files he had spread out on the far end of the table and shot a glance at Malfoy who was looking at the new addition with plain curiosity. “Malfoy, Broderick Scarborough,” Harry tossed out the introductions carelessly. “Scarborough, Draco Malfoy.”

Scarborough grinned widely, a politician’s grin, and walked towards Malfoy with his arm already out. Harry turned away with a roiling feeling in his stomach so he wouldn’t have to watch them grasp hands. When he looked back, Scarborough didn’t just have Malfoy’s hand in his grip but his shoulder as well. “Pleasure to meet you, Draco,” he said warmly and there was something almost ‘bedroomy’ about his gaze. So far as Harry knew, Scarborough had no interest in blokes.

And neither did Harry.

Not that there was anything wrong with that.

Scarborough squeezed Malfoy’s shoulder. “I’ve heard about what you’ve been doing at _Dead with Hunger_.” Ron and Harry shared almost simultaneous snorts. Scarborough shot them both a dark look. “Taking wolves under your wing,” he clarified sharply. “They speak very highly of you.”

Malfoy’s half-smile was genuine and slow to bloom. Harry had never made Malfoy smile like that.

In the next hour or so the four of them spent together there was a lot of touching between Malfoy and Scarborough. Brushing one another’s forearms to get the other person’s attention, smoothing a hand over Malfoy’s shoulder when he made a good point, moving Malfoy’s hair off his neck so Scarborough could say something into his ear. It was driving Harry to far more than distraction and he wanted to yell in Scarborough’s handsome face to go back to his whores. Despite the fact that they had brought Malfoy in specifically to achieve the opposite – and were succeeding in that too.

Truthfully, he wasn’t sure why it bothered him so much. He supposed it was because even _Malfoy_ deserved better than a two-faced prig like Broderick Scarborough.

Finally Malfoy straightened over the map he’d charted out all the murders on and said proudly, “Well. They’re not exactly random, are they?”

Scarborough got to Malfoy’s side first and he leaned over his back. He reached his arm out over Malfoy’s shoulder and smoothed out the map. “No. I don’t suppose they are,” he said thoughtfully. “I didn’t see the connection until now.”

Malfoy made an agreeable noise in the back of his throat and said, “Neither did I.” He didn’t seem to mind that Scarborough was draped all over him.

“There’s a connection?” Harry barked out, moving around the table to stand at Malfoy’s shoulder in hopes that he would see what Malfoy had. He peered at the map closely. All he saw was a large area with a lot of blue and disproportionate stars randomly drawn on it in marker. “We didn’t withhold any names,” he said gruffly, “why didn’t you alert the Aurors sooner?”

Ron was standing against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest and an air of nonchalance hanging about. “Care to share with the class?” he said languidly.

Scarborough shook his head. “It’s not the names.”

“It’s the locations,” Malfoy finished. _They were finishing each other’s sentences now?_ He pointed down at the map. “Whoever’s killing these people is doing it in the same places a new gen has been chased to by one of your lovely mobs and murdered.”

“And in the same order,” Scarborough added.

“They’re hardly _our_ mobs,” Harry muttered back, unable to help himself.

“I don’t think he meant _Aurors_ ,” Ron said from his corner of the room.

Harry scowled and defended, “We’re not bigots and we wouldn’t chase anyone to their deaths.”

Malfoy’s eyes were wide and sparkling. “I think you’d best watch who you’re speaking for, Potter.” His gaze flickered over to Ron. “Isn’t that right, Weasley?”

Ron’s mouth tightened and he kicked off the wall and left the room without saying a word.

Malfoy watched him go with a smug and vindicated expression.

  


“Hello, Draco,” Hermione said politely, clearing her throat unobtrusively in an attempt to pull his attention around. It failed miserably and Hermione went on unruffled. “I’ve been working with Harry on this since I’ve already expressed an interest in new gen rights.”

Malfoy waved a hand without turning away from his examination of Hermione’s potion stores. “I’ve read your treatise, Granger. You don’t have to convince me where your loyalties lie.”

“Oh,” Hermione said blankly. She colored a bit and seemed unable to keep from asking, “What did you—”

Malfoy was still deeply involved in tipping back bottles to scrutinize their labels when he answered. “A bit convoluted in places,” he told her distractedly, his voice guttural and only half-invested in what it was saying, “you’ll never convince the Wizengamot while you’re speaking over their heads, but thought-provoking all the same.” Finally he stopped and turned to face Hermione properly. He offered her a sharp smile. “Also, Granger, wolves hate to be referred to as ‘new gen.’ It’s a PC term created by bleeding hearts who think they’re being _kind_ by shying away from the word ‘werewolf.’ We know what we are and as we can’t deny it to ourselves, it’s best no one else try to deny it either.” A shiver actually slithered down Harry’s back as Malfoy said that last bit, his smile growing into a wolfish grin that made his teeth look larger and glint at them in the low light. Malfoy shrugged and he no longer looked so dangerous. “Not to mention, it means ‘first gen’ wolves are left out of the current debate for werewolf rights, as though by having the infection passed through saliva rather than skin they’re lesser somehow.”

Hermione leaned across her lab table, her attention riveted on Malfoy. “I never asked how you were turned.”

Malfoy’s lips pursed. “I was bitten. The contagion was borne from me.”

Hermione swallowed a gasp of surprise. She flipped through one of the many notebooks spread out in front of her. “Do you remember—” she started, picking up papers in search of a quill.

“I don’t,” Malfoy snapped and Hermione’s frantic hands stilled just like that. Malfoy cleared his throat and calmed himself. “I’ve given my memory of the event to the topmost experts in the medical field but it was hazy at best and incomprehensible at worst. The pain of it was too much to process through and my mind all but shut down during the shift.”

Hermione watched him with compassionate eyes. “I’m—”

Malfoy cut off her apology, no doubt knowing it was coming. “Based on my own research, it doesn’t seem as if there’s anything that can reverse the process. You can’t change the way the cells have mutated, not even to mutate them further. Once a gene is able to reproduce at the level this virus has managed, it’s unlikely you’ll ever be able to convince it to relinquish that kind of power. Not when it makes such evolutionary sense to be so viable.”

Hermione’s shoulders slumped and she sighed. “That’s the conclusion I’ve reached as well,” she admitted, weary with the defeat of it.

  


Harry awoke to the feel of a hand digging its fingers into his shoulder. A rough voice said, “There’s a riot in Diagon.”

Harry shot upright and pulled on his boots and robes, following Ron out of the bunker. He rubbed sleep from his eyes and asked, his voice scratchy, “What’s happened?”

“A C.R.I.S.I.S. rally,” Ron barked.

Harry rolled his eyes and muttered under his breath, “Why am I not surprised?”

By the time Harry and Ron got to Diagon, the problem had been mostly dealt with by local security – meaning the shop owners and a few of their nasty Stinging Hexes. It had certainly been downgraded from ‘riot-level’ at least. It was more like a public disturbance now, with people in the crowd yelling over one another and Dolores Umbridge standing on a makeshift stage and passing down her hate speech. “They’re dangerous creatures,” she said in her girlish voice. “Now is not the time to go soft on our animals, not with hard-working, law-abiding citizens lying in our streets with their insides on the out.”

There was a general rabble of agreement from the heart of the crowd whilst those on the edges shook their heads in disdain and quietly condemned them.

Umbridge tutted to bring the noise back down to one she could speak over. “They’re our pets, aren’t they?” Her frog-like face wore such false sympathy poorly. “And they need to be punished for disobeying their masters.” Harry flexed his fingers into fists, staring down at the shiny scars she had left him with. “They need to be caged so we might never lose track of them. They may look like friends and neighbors and family but they’re mindless creatures now.” Harry heard a growl rip through the rancor and he turned to find Scarborough and Malfoy standing far back from the crowd. Scarborough’s restraining hands were resting on Malfoy’s shoulders and he was saying something undoubtedly calming into his ear. It didn’t seem to be doing the trick as Malfoy still looked like he was out for blood.

“It’s only a matter of time before their basest instincts take them over and these isolated incidents become a pandemic,” Umbridge was saying, a damning look on her eager, piggy face. “We can’t wait for them to infect the remaining population – we have to act.” The crowd took up a rallying cry. “They already have unquenchable bloodlust three days from every month and we should let them have magic too?” she challenged and Harry would have been pleased to tell her that only one person there was personifying bloodlust. “They need to be tracked and contained. They are a threat. The greatest threat since He Who Must Not Be Named and we have every right to protect ourselves.” She let out a youthful giggle and said in a voice that would start wars, “Shouldn’t we start now?”

There was a moment of silence and then, like a rising swell, the chant started up: “ _The only good wolf is a caged wolf_.” It got louder and louder until it rang in Harry’s ears and the shop windows rattled with it. Harry shot red sparks up over his head that exploded with a _bang_ like a Muggle firework. He cast a _Sonorous_ and said in a deep baritone, “By order of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement, this gathering is instructed to disband or be faced with criminal charges including disorderly conduct, inciting a riot and causing a public disturbance.” Harry squinted and searched the dispersing crowd for a flash of white-blond but Malfoy and Scarborough had all but disappeared.

  


Harry cast a weak _Alohomora_ and the door gave as easily as he'd thought it would. He hung his cloak on the wobbly hatstand inside and strode over to the bar even as he fought with himself to leave it well enough alone. “You all right?” he asked the back of the blond head as he pointedly pulled off his gloves and shoved them in his pocket.

Malfoy spun on his bar stool lazily and snorted when he saw Harry. He tongued the cherry he’d speared with his straw into his mouth and waggled the clean end at the club’s owner. Harry had never been introduced but he had a file on the man back at the Ministry. His name was Clarence Gratwick and he was just as round in person as he looked in his photos. “Haven’t you heard?” Malfoy said boorishly to the empty club at large. “We’re nothing more than violent animals. You needn’t worry about hurting our feelings, Potter. We don’t have any.” He smiled a wide and slightly demented smile.

Gratwick held up a bottle of Knotgrass with a perked brow. Harry shrugged and Gratwick poured him a glass. He slid it across to Harry before grabbing up one of his own.

A muted wizarding telly was propped up above their heads, throwing distorting shadows over their faces. Harry took up the seat next to Malfoy and fiddled with his glass, bouncing it between restless fingers. “I wanted to make sure you were okay after today.” The truth of that scraped at Harry’s insides and he swallowed down a mouthful of that foul Knotgrass Mead to drown the feeling. He looked around carefully and asked with as much nonchalance as he could muster, “Where’s Scarborough?”

“Lining up a few press conferences to combat the rhetoric at today’s rally,” Malfoy said sourly. If he noticed how keen Harry’s interest was, he didn’t give it away. “I thought I’d leave London. The climate is hardly conducive to –” he shook his head and looked up at the telly with a sneer, “well, there are bigots in every town, aren’t there?”

Harry looked up at the muted screen as well. A woman was standing on a bridge somewhere and the caption under her read:

‘ **BORDERS CLOSED TO ALL NEW GEN** ’

Harry cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.” He managed not to blurt out ‘ _and relieved_.’ Which was good as he didn’t really understand himself why he didn’t want to see Malfoy go. He supposed it was because then they'd have to find a new 'watch-wolf' for Scarborough, but somehow that didn’t feel like the answer he was looking for.

Malfoy threw back his head with a laugh. He motioned to Gratwick and the man obediently filled Malfoy’s glass with more of the clear liquor he’d been drinking. “I’m only a big, dumb animal. Nothing to feel too sorry over.”

Harry tipped his glass to Gratwick with the idea in his head that, “We should drink. A lot.”

Gratwick grinned as he filled Harry’s glass and said gruffly, “I could get on board with that.”

  


Harry was left feeling more than a little harried after his meeting with Kingsley. Six days had passed in tense calm as they waited for the next attack but none had come. Everyone in the department knew it would be soon – the killer hadn't lasted out more than ten days without a new victim so far. Thanks to Malfoy they knew with almost complete certainty where it would take place but, walking the halls, Harry still saw the edgy and stiff expressions on his coworkers’ faces. This was why they were here, this was what could never be taught in any Auror Training program – this was the reason men _enrolled_ in the training program. Because they got that bow-tight feel when calm was about to broken.

And they could feel it now.

Harry decided to drop by Hermione’s lab on his way home in hopes that she could get his headspace in order. She had that motherly effect of soothing him when he felt like his world was coming apart at the seams.

He pushed open her door a crack and heard Malfoy’s voice tumble out of it. “—give up on that idea of swaying public opinion,” he was saying and he almost sounded… pleasant.

“I won’t.” Hermione seemed scandalized by the very suggestion, albeit goodnaturedly. “I refuse to believe our whole population is best suited for a lynch mob. We’re smarter animals than that.”

Malfoy's tone was snide. “Wolves are the only animals they’ll admit to recognizing.”

Harry heard the sounds of metal on metal as Malfoy and Hermione lapsed into an easy silence. Harry wasn't sure if he should break the moment and enter or turn and leave as Hermione was clearly otherwise occupied. He was just beginning to draw away when Hermione broke their embargo on speaking. “I’m sorry.”

Malfoy didn't sound impressed, or intrigued either. “I’ll take my apologies from Dolores Umbridge, thank you.”

“No, I—” Hermione paused, gathering herself. “For that day in the chamber. I don’t know if you remember—”

Harry pushed the door half-turn now. He wanted to see Hermione’s face as she said this. Malfoy’s back was to him and even at a distance Harry could see that his shoulders were all knotted up. “All I remember of that day is my mother,” he said stiffly. Guilt poured down Harry’s back like ice water. He remembered Malfoy’s mother too. Harry had been the one to tell her.

Hermione’s legs were crossed and she was sitting on the countertop that Malfoy was leaning against, looking down at him. Harry knew it had been a long while since he’d seen her sit so comfortably. “I wanted to leave you, Ron and I did.” She said it with the same weight a person would give a grand secret.

Malfoy didn't look moved. “Really, you didn’t want to get crushed to death for me? Color me shocked.”

Hermione bit her lip to stay a smile – the smile was winning. “Harry wouldn't have left you. _Didn't_ leave you.”

“Well, Potter is a hero and heroes are always insensitive bastards.” Hermione actually barked out a laugh. She slapped a hand over her mouth as it had come out loud and happy. Malfoy seemed pleased with himself that he had cheered her. “I mean, they're lovely people and all – selfless and whatnot. But they tend to make you feel the villain whether they mean to or not. When people are that _good_ , just standing close to them magnifies our bad.”

Hermione looked down at the hands in her lap. She didn't disagree. “I’ve always felt badly about it,” she said finally, getting them back on target, and something in Harry loosened. He hadn’t known he still judged her for that moment until this one.

Malfoy snorted. “Salazar, Gryffindor guilt, it really does make you feel responsible for the world, doesn’t it?” Malfoy took in an audible breath. “Not that you need it, Granger, but you are forgiven.”

Hermione's whole body eased out of the tenseness of her earlier position.

Malfoy, never content to leave anything alone, poked at it. “It’s not my forgiveness you want though, is it? What happened between you and Weasley?” Hermione tightened right back up.

She stretched out her legs with a sigh. Malfoy stepped back to let her and Hermione offered him an apologetic smile. She had clearly forgot that she and Malfoy could not touch the same way it always tried to slip Harry’s mind. It was obviously never far from Malfoy’s. “Do you know what happened to Gin—to his sister?”

“I vaguely remember hearing something about infection,” Malfoy responded offhandedly.

Hermione nodded. “Ron and I were always fighting about my work with the new gen—with wolves,” she corrected, remembering Malfoy’s instruction. “He thought of them as nothing more than volatile animals. You have to understand, he doesn’t hate the wolves – he’s not like Umbridge. It’s just that they have no control over spreading the disease and Ron likes to be in control. He’s a brilliant strategist in that way,” she offered with a wobbly sort of smile. She glanced away from Malfoy's concentrated stare. “He didn’t think my patients were out to get me or any nonsense like that, he just thought… well, accidents happen. Ginny overheard us and she started to see things my way.” Even though Harry was certain Hermione tried not to show it, there was a bit of pride in her voice there. “She went to work at the treatment center with me.”

Malfoy didn’t seem prone to interrupting but still Hermione paused as though he was. She gathered herself and Malfoy was kind enough to let her without urging her on.

“It was a pinprick,” she said with a great sniff. “Hardly anything substantial. But it was enough.” Hermione laughed a bit, though she couldn’t have sounded further from amused. “She might as well have not worn the gloves at all. Ron’s always blamed me for getting her involved and he’s right. If it hadn’t been for me, she wouldn’t have been there at all.”

Malfoy agreed almost cruelly, “No, she wouldn’t have been. Not at that center, not at that time,” Hermione sniffed again, folding in on herself, and Malfoy's voice softened as he went on, “but it sounds to me like she would have got there eventually.” Hermione’s head shot up and she blinked wide, startled eyes at him. “You can hardly blame yourself for her goodwill and, even if you could, what a silly thing to feel badly over.”

Hermione laughed a stunned sort of laugh and Malfoy Summoned her a tissue off the next worktable so she could blow her nose.

“It's not really you, you know?” Malfoy said abruptly. Hermione stared down at him in confusion. “You love him – I'm at a complete loss as to why – but you do. And you don't seem the type of person where that's subject to change.” Hermione didn't answer aloud but she didn't have to. She wore her heart on her sleeve and everyone knew who it was for without her having to speak a word. “It’s honorable what you're doing for him – letting him exorcise his demons through you – but I think it might be time to say enough now.”

Harry didn’t stay to hear her answer. He was too afraid it wouldn't be the one he hoped for.

  


Harry was parked outside an alley in Kent’s Wizarding District in one of the Ministry’s unmarked cars. Over six years ago now, the fourth new gen victim had been cornered down that same alley, drenched in gasoline and set on fire by a crowd of his neighbors. Harry suppressed a shiver and took a calming sip of his coffee. It burned the roof of his mouth and he let out a pained gasp.

Malfoy shot him a look that clearly said he was pathetic. Harry chose to ignore it.

He blew on his coffee and shot a sideways glance at Malfoy. The car creaked in the blustery wind and Harry listened to it for a long moment. “Who bit you?”

Malfoy stared into his own drink and bit his lower lip smugly, as though he’d been expecting the question a while. “Whom do you think?”

So far as Harry knew, Voldemort only had one werewolf in his service before he’d created the new gen. And Malfoy was the first of them. Greyback. “I’m sorry.”

Malfoy snorted. “Not every injustice in the world rests on your shoulders.”

Harry had to wonder why it sometimes felt like it did. He turned in his bucket seat so he could talk to Malfoy properly. “Why _Dead with Hunger_? I’ve always wondered.”

Malfoy’s smile was small and just for him. “Gratwick’s subtle rebellion,” he replied softly. “It’s a fable from a children’s book.” Harry looked at him askance and Malfoy sighed, settling in for the tale. “A wolf, dead with hunger, gaunt and half-starved, comes upon its cousin, the canine, while searching for food. The dog looks over his cousin and then himself and asks why the wolf isn’t as well fed as he is. The wolf explains that it is an effort to find food in the diminishing forest and that he has been traveling for days on little to eat in search of new hunting ground. The dog eagerly tells his cousin of his own home where food is not only in endless supply, but hand-delivered. The dog notices the wolf's glassy stare and encourages him to give up the wild in exchange for an easy, domestic life. The wolf readily agrees, relieved that his hunger might soon be alleviated. They take the walk together toward the dog’s home and, on the way, the wolf notices the dog's fur is thinner around his neck. He asks the dog why. The dog tells him that’s where his master’s chain chafes and the wolf abandons him.”

Harry blinked. “I don’t understand.”

Malfoy sighed and said, “It’s better to be your own master, Potter. Even when things seem miserable, being _owned_ is always worse. These arguments for tracking us, placing restrictions on our magic, locking us up—the club’s a reminder that hasn’t happened yet. Even if it seems difficult now, at the very least we’re free.”

Harry stared at him for a long moment. “What are you doing with Scarborough?” he blurted out in complete and utter confusion.

“Excuse me?” Malfoy asked with an edge to his tone.

Harry tried stuffing the words back into his mouth but that was a pointless exercise now; he'd made his bed. “He’s a vain prick who’s only out for himself.”

Malfoy almost laughed. He perked a blond brown and gave Harry a penetrating look. “And that’s different from me how?”

Harry colored and shifted uncomfortably. “Yeah, maybe I believed that once but I know better now. I know that’s not you. I’ve heard about the way you take care of the others.”

Malfoy played with the red coffee stirrer in his drink with careful fingers. “Broderick put a face to it. It may have been for his own gain but it still took courage and it made people see the truth—that we’re not just scarred and ugly animals. That we’re people just like them who’ve had a bit more bad luck than they have.”

“You deserve better than him,” Harry said quietly, believing that in his very bones.

Malfoy clenched his jaw. “It’s not like I have that many options, Potter.” He stared down into his coffee, which had long gone cold, and let out a despairing breath through his nose. “You don’t know how much you’ll miss being touched until you can’t be anymore.”

They didn't talk much after that. Harry was too afraid he'd put his foot in it again – or, worse, say more of what was on his mind, and Malfoy seemed lost in his own thoughts. The rest of the stakeout didn't turn up any murders but it did yield a pleasant night spent in Malfoy's company, which was surprise enough on its own. Harry was ready to call it a night, eager not ruin the goodwill he'd managed to engender during their time together, when Malfoy invited him into the manor for a nightcap.

Harry’d had two glasses of brandy by the time he was saying things that were likely better left unsaid. “You could do something more than get half-naked for stranger’s Galleons.” He ignored the voice in his head that said Malfoy _did_ do a lot more than get half-naked. With this much brandy in him, Harry could admit that he didn’t want to think about that.

“It’s work,” Malfoy retorted, “and it’s about the only work a wolf can get these days.”

Harry shook his head vehemently. “You have money, power, influence—”

Malfoy laughed outright. “No wolf has influence, not even Broderick.” Harry’s nose wrinkled at the sound of that name from Malfoy’s mouth. “He can affect other _wolves_ , not the general population. We’re already alone and isolated and the Ministry is rabid to take more.”

Harry stared into the crackling flames. He’d been right about how comfortable the chairs were. “Not all of us,” Harry told him seriously.

Malfoy swallowed and looked away. “No, there are still people like Granger out there I suppose.”

Harry placed his hand on the arm of Malfoy’s chair. “Not just her,” he said softly, leaning in towards Malfoy. And this was right, this was what he'd wanted since the beginning of—since the beginning of him and Malfoy. He couldn't believe how long it'd taken him to know it. Malfoy was leaning in too and Harry felt a thrill as he closed his eyes.

A sharp voice cut between them. “Draco.”

Malfoy pulled back and stood quickly. “Father?”

Lucius Malfoy was waiting for him in the maw of the doorway. He nodded sharply but courteously to Harry. “Potter, I didn’t see you there,” he said with stiff politeness.

Malfoy cleared his throat. “It’s fine, Father. Potter was just leaving.”

Lucius seemed appeased by that and Harry wondered how much he had seen or, worse, guessed. Malfoy walked over to meet his father, leaving Harry looking up at him, trying not to feel abandoned. “The elves have prepared a meal. It’s been days since I’ve seen you eat properly.”

Malfoy smiled grimly. “It should please you to know, then, that today my appetite is gargantuan.”

  


It was an effort finding Malfoy alone the next day but Harry finally cornered him on his way to Broderick’s office. And Harry tried not to drown in resentment over exactly _where_ he’d caught up to Malfoy. He stupidly tried to grab for Malfoy’s arm to get his attention. Thankfully Malfoy moved out of range before he could make contact. “About the other night,” Harry started.

Malfoy held up a hand and said in a low voice, “Let’s not. We got caught up in a moment. Obviously it’s not something that can ever happen.”

Harry swallowed and offered him a weak nod. He’d known that was the answer but it still hadn’t been what he wanted to hear. Malfoy straightened his robes and Harry told his back as he made to leave, unable to stop himself, “I do want you.” Because if Harry didn't say it, Malfoy might do something stupid – like continue seeing Scarborough.

Malfoy froze and bit out coolly, “That’s not making things easier, Potter.”

  


Still no one had shown up to crispify anyone in that alley in Kent. Harry’s shift ended on a boring anti-climax and he felt wound tight from sitting on edge all night. He thought about packing it in and shoving it down and throwing himself into bed, despite the adrenaline that lingered, but he knew – and he could admit it inside his own head even if he couldn’t out loud – there was only one place he wanted to be.

Despite the fact that it was a special kind of hell being around Malfoy, Harry was convinced that if they couldn’t manage a relationship then they could at least build a solid friendship.

The trouble with his plan was that Malfoy wasn’t home and Harry turned away to curse his luck when the timid little elf behind the great, grand door offered up the option to wait for Malfoy in the study. There was no reason to say yes but that didn’t stop Harry doing it. He’d rather have the possibility of seeing Malfoy tonight than go home to his cold flat and fall asleep alone all the while wishing he wasn’t.

He poured himself a generous drink from the wet bar in the study while Abraxas Malfoy watched him with a smug, amused expression on his haughty face. “Here's something I never thought I would see,” he said with a quiet chuckle. His voice had a sly, needling quality to it.

Harry’s nostrils flared and he ignored the snotty Malfoy entirely.

“A half-blood mooning over a Malfoy.” Harry’s shoulders flinched inward and his neck felt hot. “You know he’ll never have you, don’t you? It wouldn’t be the proper order of things.”

“Piss off,” Harry muttered under his breath.

“Though I suppose with his new,” Abraxas sniffed, “ _taint_ , he might take whatever he can get.”

Harry whirled around and gritted his teeth. “How dare—” He was breathing like a bull about to charge. “He’s _not_ tainted.”

Abraxas smiled his yellow-toothed smile at him. “I’m well aware of that.” His eyes narrowed and there was something almost painfully calculating about them. “I only wanted to be sure you were as well.”

Harry dropped into the seat behind the desk and whirled it around to face Abraxas’ full-size portrait. “You're right,” Harry said, and there were words he never thought he’d say. “He won’t have me, even if I was the same as him.” He must be feeling lonely and especially maudlin to be talking to _Abraxas Malfoy_ of all people.

“He opened the door for you,” Abraxas pointed out, crossing his hands on top of his knee delicately.

Harry clenched his jaw, took a long drink from his tumbler and bit out, “He’s _sleeping_ with Scarborough.”

Abraxas didn’t seem particularly moved by the comment. “That may be true,” he started and Harry took in a sharp breath through his nose, closing his eyes as if he was in pain. Abraxas chuckled. “Ah, clever. Very Slytherin of you, boy. You weren't actually sure then, were you?”

Harry shook his head, not trusting himself to open his mouth as he wasn't sure he wouldn't be sick.

“He’s a more handsome man than you, to be sure,” Abraxas informed him easily.

Harry offered him a two-fingered salute.

“But Draco is not in love with him and he is not likely to find himself there any time soon,” he finished, ignoring Harry’s rudeness.

Harry lowered his hand and brought it back down around his drink. He held it carefully in his hands as though it contained the answer to everything. “Scarborough has his disease,” Harry said quietly, staring into the bottom of his glass.

Abraxas sniffed. “That disease, it’s quite contagious I hear.”

Harry’s gaze shot up to meet Abraxas’ cool, plotting stare. “I couldn’t—I—Or I could.” He stared blankly at the wall. “You think I should infect myself for him?”

Abraxas took in a deep and serene breath. “I think if you truly desire something, you stop at nothing to attain it.” He smirked coolly. “That is the Malfoy way.”

“He would never let me,” Harry realized.

“You need permission?” Abraxas asked with disdain. Harry looked up at him glumly and Abraxas sighed. “It is true that if you do something of this magnitude for something as transitory and unreliable as love, Draco will likely lose all respect for you.”

“Right.” Harry snorted. “If it’s not power or money, it’s useless.”

Abraxas pursed his mouth tight. “Love has a power of its own. We Malfoys know love, and I will not have you insinuate otherwise.” Harry held up his hand in a placating fashion. “We just know better than to trust it. Draco will lose respect for you because you would have made a permanent decision based on an impermanent emotion.”

Harry shook his head. “I don’t even know how we got on—I don’t love him.”

“Not yet at least,” Abraxas agreed and disagreed with the same words. “But that is what will move you to make the change should you decide to do so.” Harry clenched his jaw and looked away. He couldn’t exactly deny that. “I’m telling you, if you expect Draco to accept what you have done, you must offer him a different truth than love.”

“Meaning?”

“You are Harry Potter. Even a portrait of a man who’s been dead far longer than you've been alive knows your name and what it means to the wizarding world.” Harry swallowed, suddenly uneasy. “If _you_ were to become infected, the proposed laws would change, the climate itself would shift. No grateful world locks up its savior, no matter what’s become of him. If Draco believes _this_ is the reason you’ve infected yourself, he’ll be able to forgive it and his love will surely follow.”

“And that’s why you want me to do it,” Harry accused, unable to believe he'd almost got wrapped up in a plot Abraxas Malfoy had cooked up. Weaselling, deceitful, vile _Slytherins_. “You don’t care if I get Malfoy out of all this. You only care that I become the new face of the werewolves. You’d have me infect myself just to—”

“Save my grandson,” Abraxas finished for him, his dark eyes blazing. “Yes, I would. Our interests may come from different corners but they converge on the same path. You want my grandson’s affection. I want him alive long enough to give it.”

Harry slumped back in his seat, clenching his jaw while he pondered Abraxas’ words.

“You would change the way the winds are blowing,” Abraxas said carefully, his eyes gauging Harry’s every movement.

Harry rubbed a hand over his face and answered bitterly, “And all I have to do to accomplish it is give up the touch of my friends and family, my work, my life as I know it.”

Abraxas didn’t try to sugarcoat it. “Yes.”

Harry sighed, pushing up his glasses and digging his fingers into his closed eyelids. He looked around and guessed, “He won’t be back tonight, will he?”

“It will give you time to make your decision,” Abraxas said easily, carefully skirting the topic Harry had been trying to get him onto.

Harry stood and threw back the last of his scotch, making a face as it went down. He made to leave before realizing Abraxas was still waiting for an answer. He shrugged his shoulders and said bleakly, “I suppose you’re right about that.”

  


Harry was running late to the morning briefing and he was employing a speed-walk that looked like more of a side-gallop. He was still trying to shake off that last drink he’d had the night before when Hermione burst out of the room in front of him and nearly knocked him on his arse. Harry protected his coffee and chastised with a scowl, “Hermione, what’re you—”

“Draco’s missing.”

Harry felt like he’d swallowed his heart and it’d got stuck in his throat. He grabbed her by the arm and pulled her off to the side. “What do we know?” he asked sharply.

Hermione gulped in air and said in a rush, “He was meant to meet up with Scarborough two nights ago but he never showed. Scarborough assumed he’d got caught up in something with you.” Harry’s lips pursed tighter. That almost sounded as if Scarborough suspected— “And I was supposed to see him yesterday afternoon so we could continue the _Pesilentia_ research but he missed that as well. I went by the manor, to check everything was all right, and Lucius said he hasn’t been home either.”

“The club,” Harry got out. “Have you checked the club?”

Hermione shook her head frantically.

Harry Apparated just inside the door. It was the first time he'd seen the club during business hours and the noise of the patrons cat-calling and the thumpa-thumpa of the music drowned his thoughts for a moment, at least until he spotted Gratwick heading out a side door. Harry chased after him through the crowd of tables, not sparing even a glance for the dancers on stage. He followed Gratwick through to a small and seedy little office. “Gratwick, where’s Malfoy?”

Gratwick’s mouth dropped open and his cigar fell out of it. He obviously hadn’t realized Harry had been right behind him. He gaped like a fish for a moment before he absorbed Harry’s question. “He hasn’t been in.” He shook his head and remembered. “He left something for you, behind the bar.”

Harry danced from foot to foot in antsy impatience as he barked at the bartender to find Malfoy’s note. After a moment or two of searching, the man dragged it up. Two lines were written on it in clear print:

  


_Cherrywood District  
1745 Clement Road_  


It took Harry seven minutes to find it. The whole street looked abandoned and 1745 turned out to be a warehouse with scorch marks around the blown-out windows. Harry tore inside only to find that it was empty. It was huge and utterly vacant and there was nothing to hide behind save a couple of pillars. It was a dead end.

Harry sighed and tried to think. Malfoy must have had a reason for bringing him here. And then Harry felt it, a weak pulse of magic. He let it lead him to the far corner where it was practically thrumming beneath his feet.

“ _Revelio_ ,” he said, pointing his wand at the floor. The most beautiful sight met his eager gaze: _stairs_.

Harry grinned at his own cleverness and shot down them. The passageway he came out into was narrow and slate gray and it led to a wide antechamber that was full of cobwebs and old furniture. Behind it was one final room and there, on an uncomfortable bench that was passing itself off as an even more uncomforable cot, was Malfoy.

Harry rushed toward him and saw the chains that were wrapped around Malfoy’s neck and wrists. They were almost transparent and they glinted silver in the faded candlelight. They were made of magic and Harry realized that the chains, along with the cloaked entrance, had drawn him here.

“Are you all right?” he asked quickly.

Malfoy blinked grey eyes at him, seeming almost amused that Harry was there. “I’m fine. I wasn’t in any danger.”

Harry looked around pointedly at Malfoy’s predicament and pulled out his wand. His _Finite_ shot out into the air and fizzled before it reached Malfoy. “What the—” Harry tried again. And again. He then tried to Apparate. Nothing. “How in the hell has this wolf managed a magic nullification field that has _magic_ in it?” Harry was impressed despite himself.

Malfoy looked rather bored. “Well isn’t this a crack rescue,” he said, wholly unimpressed.

Harry growled at him. “You were missing. I wasn’t exactly doing my best thinking.” He whipped his wand through the air angrily. “Besides, I didn’t think anyone would have a bloody nullification field in place.” He looked around the tiny cell. The only other accoutrements included a table with a single candle on it and a lone stool. The candle was still burning and had nearly melted into nothing and, now that Harry was looking more closely, he noticed that lying right next to it was a wand. And it wasn’t Malfoy’s.

Harry snatched it up and cast the same spells he’d tried with his own wand. They were just as ineffective, possibly because _this_ wand was trying everything in its power to buck out of his hand. He was about to start yanking at the chains like a caveman when footsteps began tromping down the stairs.

Malfoy’s eyes widened. “Hide.”

Harry blinked. “What?”

“He’s coming back,” Malfoy said, trying to shoo him away, “ _hide_.”

“Who’s coming back?” Harry whispered as he dove under Malfoy’s bench. Luckily it was dark enough that he didn’t think he’d be seen. He pulled his black robes up over his head and dragged his feet under as well so his white trainers wouldn’t give him away.

Feet come into view – feet in trainers that were even rattier than Harry’s. The wolf was wearing jeans too and Harry moved forward enough that he’d be able to peek up at the person’s face.

It was a man, a man who looked strangely familiar somehow. He had brownish-blond hair and a light dusting of freckles over his nose. He was lanky and his throat was knobbly and his skin was pale – though he had nothing on Malfoy in that regard. His clothes were a bit too small for him, like he was still growing, and Harry was reminded starkly of himself when he was younger.

“Dennis,” Malfoy said.

And then Harry knew who he was looking at. Dennis bloody _Creevey_.

Dennis dragged the stool in front of Malfoy, letting it screech the whole way over as though he didn't hear it, and he sat down. His face scrunched up and he rubbed at his forehead with the heel of his palm. This was because he was holding a gun with the rest of his hand. It was an effort to stay still as every cell in Harry's body was straining for him to rip out of his hiding place and get the gun out of Dennis' hand using whatever means necessary. The only thing that stopped him was that Malfoy had brought his leg down right in front of Harry's face in an unspoken request for patience. Harry was trying to give him that.

Dennis shook his head and drew in a shuddering breath. “It wasn’t supposed to be like this, Draco,” he croaked out.

Malfoy shifted forward on the bench and put a chained hand on Dennis’ knee. Infected then. “I know that,” Malfoy said carefully, a wealth of emotion in his voice.

Dennis brought the gun down to the knee Malfoy’s hand wasn’t on. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he said determinedly and Harry’s heart stopped beating like it meant to explode. “I still remember everything you’ve done for me.”

“I never thought you were going to,” Malfoy answered.

Dennis’ hand dropped down and squeezed Malfoy’s tightly. Harry could see from the way Malfoy’s legs jolted that he had flinched from the suddenness of the movement. Dennis molded Malfoy’s hand like clay, too rough in his effort to make himself understood. “I’m sorry,” he hissed desperately.

Malfoy didn’t seem fazed. “Don’t be sorry,” he said softly. “Explain it to me.”

Dennis moved out of Malfoy’s reach and stood up. He waved the gun about as he spread his arms out. “They were _killing us_ , and _no one_ cared.” He pointed at his own chest with the barrel. “Jamie was my best mate, you know.” Dennis’ face was streaked with pain as he said the name.

Harry could hear Malfoy swallow in the stillness of the room. “I remember, you stuck to each other like glue at the club.”

Dennis nodded. “They killed him,” he said hoarsely, “and the Aurors didn’t even investigate it.” He sniffed and swiped at his nose with the forearm that had the gun in it. “It was only fair," he said petulantly. He sounded so _young_. "A life for a life.”

“Dennis—” Malfoy started but Dennis didn't let him finish.

“No one would _do_ anything!” He smiled a grim and dangerous sort of smile. “But now they’re paying attention, now I’ve got their ear, see?”

Malfoy held up his hands cautiously and the chain slithered down in front of Harry’s face. “Maybe you should put the gun down, Dennis.”

Dennis shook his head fiercely and said with a sniff, “I won’t. I’ll die with it in my hand.” He shook it to make his point. “I’d rather go out like a Muggle than keep hold of that thing,” he shot a disgusted glance at the table that held his wand, “– it’s just a remnant of a world that doesn’t accept me – _us_.”

“I know it seems—”

“No,” Dennis cut him off, his mouth pursed angrily, “it doesn’t _seem_ anything, Draco. This is what it is. This is what we’ve been pushed to.” His grip on the gun tightened at his side. “I’m filled with so much _hate_ ,” he said and there were tears in the strain of his voice. “I never used to hate anything and now it’s all that’s left. And they’ve done it to me. They’ve turned me into this.”

Dennis’ chest was heaving and he looked on the verge of something. Malfoy stood up and took a step towards him. “Dennis, calm down.”

Dennis was shaking his head and he didn’t seem to have heard Malfoy’s plea. “I can’t live in this world anymore. I’ve tried but there’s no place for us.”

Malfoy was panicked now. He walked as far as his chains would allow and reached out for Dennis’ face. “Dennis. It’s not true. It’s what they want us to believe but it isn’t true,” Malfoy tried frantically. “There are still some people out there who see us, who don’t think of us as monsters, who are fighting _for_ us. We owe it to them to be the better men.”

Dennis wasn’t looking at him. He bit his lip and Harry could see tears falling from his cheeks. “I don’t have that in me anymore. I don’t have anything but anger left.”

Malfoy was breathing just as hard as Dennis now. “I don’t believe that,” he argued, intensity in him. “You are a _good_ man, Dennis Creevey.” Dennis looked up at him finally and he got close enough that Malfoy could touch his cheek. It was made awkward as Malfoy’s wrists were bound together but Dennis still leaned into the comfort he offered. “Don’t you let a few bigots ever convince you otherwise,” Malfoy said fiercely.

Dennis backed away and stared at Malfoy with desolation in his eyes. “Maybe if it was only a few, I wouldn’t,” he said softly. He put the gun under his chin and he pulled the trigger.

“Dennis!” Malfoy screamed but there was nothing to be done. He was gone.

  


Malfoy leaned against a wall across the street while Aurors and reporters swarmed in and around and through the warehouse. Harry handed him a flannel so he could wipe the blood from his face. “Are you all right?” he asked softly.

“No,” Malfoy said, and his voice came out cracked and broken, “I’m not.”

Harry wanted nothing more than to hold him, to stroke the hair back from his face and tell him it would all be okay somehow. Instead he took up the space on the wall next to him and said blankly, “I can’t believe he killed himself, just like that.” Harry thought in moments like this maybe all you could do was state the obvious.

“He didn’t kill himself,” Malfoy said with a disbelieving little huff. He looked at Harry like he didn't know him at all, like Harry was missing some vital piece of his very humanity. He shook his head in rank disappointment and finished his thought, “your good citizens did.”

“I haven’t defended them,” Harry pointed out, standing up straighter as he got defensive.

Malfoy snorted. “Yes, you have.” His eyes narrowed and he shot Harry a look rife with loathing and disgust. “You walk both sides of the line like everyone else. Understanding but indecisive." Harry was reminded of the crowd in Diagon the day of the C.R.I.S.I.S. rally – Umbridge's supporters had made themselves heard while her detractors were silent in their condemnation. "Either what they’re doing is wrong or it isn’t.”

Harry shook his head, more to himself. “You’re both wrong," he argued. "I’m not standing up for either side when there’s blood on both.”

“It’s war, Potter," Malfoy said coldly. "Blood is pretty much the uniform.”

“I’d hardly call this a war,” Harry retorted quickly.

Malfoy's lip raised and he hissed, “Just because it’s quiet and the murders are done in dead of night and the worst weapons are quill and parchment doesn’t make it any less a war.” He looked lost, like he couldn't believe that Harry didn't understand. “They mean to kill us,” he said, voice strained, as though he was aching to make things clear enough that Harry might get it. “And it will happen because of men like you—men who know it’s wrong but refuse to choose a side. It will start with sequestering us somewhere, for our own good, and then there will be a gas leak, earthquake, building collapse, raw magicks colliding, rogue dragon, whatever can take out a large population in one go and then that pesky new gen _problem_ will be no more. Stragglers and survivors will be taken out one by one until order is restored.” He bit his lip and asked disbelievingly, “Are you really so dense that you can’t read between the lines?”

And that couldn’t be true. Harry didn’t live in a world that would do that. Magic was good and righteous, it didn’t cause things like that. Just the idea of it terrified him to his core. “That’s not the way the world works, Malfoy,” he said on a shaky breath.

Malfoy laughed. “No, Potter. That’s not the way it says it works.”

  


Malfoy agreed to meet him at a café. It hadn't been easy to convince him, not after Dennis, not after the conversation they'd had outside the warehouse. Malfoy wanted him to fight in a war that Harry didn't even see. Harry already had a cup of coffee and an impressive biscuit in front of him when Malfoy showed. “Potter—” he started with deep exasperation.

“You want me to choose,” Harry snapped, cutting him off. That got Malfoy to pause. If he was going to do this then he wasn't about to take any shit from Malfoy. “Fine,” he spat. “I choose you.”

Malfoy’s eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Why?”

“You know the answer to that,” Harry retorted.

Malfoy lowered himself into the seat across from him with a pained expression on his face and sighed. “I don’t want you then,” he said. “Not if you’re going to choose what’s right for all the wrong reasons.”

“What does it matter what the reasons are if I’m choosing what’s right?” Harry argued. “This is the only way I can fight.”

Malfoy stopped rubbing at his forehead for a minute to stare shrewdly at Harry. "But you don’t want to fight,” Malfoy hazarded uncertainly.

“I do,” Harry said back fiercely.

“But for me,” Malfoy guessed. When Harry didn’t answer right off, Malfoy clarified insistently, “It’s more that you just want me, isn’t it?”

Harry clenched his jaw and started absentmindedly breaking his biscuit up into crumbs. “So what if it is?”

Malfoy scowled, looking as if he’d expected that answer but was still disappointed by it. “No one chooses this – no one sane. I won’t have you put this on me.”

“It’s _my_ decision. You’re not involved in it.” Abraxas' words in the study, mocking his need for permission, rang in his ears. Harry's mouth tightened and he decided unarguably, “You don’t get to disallow it.”

Malfoy’s nostrils flared as he tried to make his point understood. “It’s a decision you’re making because of _me_.”

“What if it is?” Harry said, conceding the point with a shrug of his shoulders. “It’s still the _right_ decision. They mean to cage you like an animal and I won’t see it done and, _better_ , no one will see it done to _me_. The best way I know to protect you, to protect all of you, is to become one of you.”

Malfoy gave him a short nod. He could obviously see that Harry's mind was made up. He took the napkin out of his lap, placed it on the table and said with a raw sort of honesty, “I’ll never forgive you.”

Harry swallowed. “I’ll take my chances.”

Malfoy caught him with a sharp gaze that looked frightened somehow, like a cornered animal's. “It won’t be me,” he said cuttingly. His eyes were shadowed. “You’ll have to find someone else to _mutate_ you.”

  


Harry couldn’t accept that. He had no doubt that he could find a wolf to infect him but he didn’t want just any wolf. He wanted the man who had opened his eyes to what was really happening. He owled Malfoy, asking him to meet Harry at the Leaky – one of the few mixed establishments still left in Diagon. He had no idea if Malfoy would show but he had hope.

Fifteen minutes after he’d arrived and buried himself in a booth, Malfoy stepped through the door. He slid into the other side of it and Harry smiled at him. His mouth felt clumsy around it. It had been a while since he'd done it. “I’ve been thinking about you,” he admitted, his hands wrapped around his bottle like it was a lifeline. “It’s only fair that I should be changed by the man who made me _want_ to change.”

Malfoy was wrapped up in a cloak and he looked paler than Harry remembered. The bags under his eyes were heavier and Harry wanted nothing more than to smooth away the creases in his forehead. Malfoy heaved out a deep sigh. “I can’t give you that. I can’t be responsible for what it would take away.”

Harry reached across the counter and Malfoy flinched back. Harry’s mouth tightened and he lowered his gaze to the tabletop. “I don’t want it to be anyone else.”

The sat in silence for a long moment and the rabble of the pub washed over them in rocking waves. “I’m wrecked, Potter.” Malfoy’s voice was a croak when he finally spoke. He tilted his head down to catch Harry’s eyes. “Don’t you see that?”

Harry stared right back at him, unable to believe that Malfoy really didn’t see it – what made him so painfully attractive, what made Harry want to give up the world for him. “You’re right,” he admitted, “you’re not _pretty_ anymore. You’ve scars and wrinkles and you’re real now.” Harry dragged his nail through the label on his beer and he made a clean stripe in it. “You were like some doll in school, the perfect example of the pureblood elite. Now I look at you and I see a warrior.” He could tell from the expression on Malfoy’s face that that hadn’t been what he’d expected. “You don’t have to be flawless to be beautiful. With you, Draco, your flaws are what _make_ you beautiful.”

That was the first time in Harry's memory that he had called him ‘Draco.’ He didn’t know why he’d been so afraid of it now.

Malfoy was silent for a long moment and then he stood, without a word, and stared down at Harry. He straightened out his robes, and it looked like it was just an excuse to look away. He was still looking away when he said, “And it’s your heart that does that for you, Potter. Everyone deserves a bit of it. You shouldn’t throw it all to the wolves.”

Harry could do nothing but stare after him as he walked away. It took him a moment to realize that Malfoy had just called him beautiful.

  


Harry sat in Hermione’s office while she worked and from the way she kept shooting him questioning glances, he knew she was waiting for him to admit why he was truly there. He finally decided to own up to it. “I’ve asked Draco to infect me,” he said. He’d got used to saying the name now. He hardly ever even thought of him as ‘Malfoy’ anymore.

Hermione’s head shot up and he could see the shock written all over her face.

Harry hopped off his chair and strode over to her to make his appeal. It needed the human touch to it and it needed a strong presence to argue the logic of it. “You were right,” he told her without any qualms. “What the Ministry’s doing to them—it’s not only unfair, it’s evil. Dennis Creevey killed himself right in front of me just to make the world see it.” Sometimes Harry still woke with that image in his head. Draco had been right, Dennis Creevey was good and for a _good_ man to be driven to _that_ – it meant the world was more cracked than it pretended to be. “I can’t be on that side of it anymore. I have the right name to make a difference.”

Hermione seemed to swallow down several different arguments. No doubt the determined look on Harry’s face had convinced her that _any_ arguments were useless. She only pointed out, “Draco may not forgive you for it.”

“I know,” Harry said heavily. “He’s said as much already.” He looked down at his hands and said softly, “I think he’s using it, the disease, to keep himself miserable, distant. I think there’s a part of him that doesn’t want to come close to anyone, that doesn’t want to open itself up to the possibility of getting hurt, that doesn’t want to leave him vulnerable.”

Hermione was watching him carefully. “That does sound like Draco,” she admitted.

Harry looked up at her, his gaze burning in an effort to make her understand. “It’s not only for him. I do think this is the right thing to do.”

Hermione nodded and said, “I don’t think you would have thought to do it if you hadn’t wanted to follow Malfoy wherever he led though. Just as you always have.”

Harry grinned and admitted, “Maybe not.”

  


Harry had made his decision. He knew what he wanted now and he couldn’t be swayed from it. So he found Draco and told him as much.

“You wanted me to be sure, didn’t you?” he asked. Draco didn’t answer, just kept his arms crossed over his chest while he stared at some far off patch of grass that the night made black. “I finally am,” Harry told him. “I want you to infect me, but if you won’t then I’ll find someone else.” And it wasn’t an ultimatum or a threat. It was only the truth.

Draco scowled. He still wasn’t meeting Harry’s gaze. “Even though you have no idea how this – _we_ – would finish? What if it ends up short and bloody? What then? You would have sacrificed everything you know for a glorified fling.”

Harry shook his head and tried to explain himself. “I’m not just choosing you. I thought I was but I’m not. I’m choosing a side. Even if we don’t last, this is still something I need to do.”

Malfoy’s jaw tensed. “It’s not supposed to be this hard,” he got out tightly.

“And it isn’t hard,” Harry argued, “not where it counts. Whatever this is, between us, we’ve never had to work at it. It’s always been there even when we tried to wish it away.” At least, Harry knew, _he_ had tried to wish it away. “And when things like that come so easily the rest of the world seems impossible in comparison. We’ve just got a bit more impossible than most.”

Malfoy stared up at the sky. It was dotted with stars. “Give me time?” he said finally.

Harry offered him a single, sharp nod. “Twenty-four hours, and then I want your decision.”

  


When Harry came to, he was in one of the Auror interrogation rooms and Ron was standing in one corner, Hermione in the other. The table had been Vanished and only the chair he was sitting in was left. “Draco owled,” Hermione explained, shooting a glance at Ron. Harry couldn’t begin to guess what she was thinking.

Harry looked over at Ron as well. He was leaning against the partition, his arms crossed over his chest while he stared down at the crease where floor met wall.

“You want to become one of them,” he said hoarsely and he sounded… _betrayed_.

Harry sat up in his seat. “It’s the right thing,” he said with feeling. “The Ministry is going to strip them of their rights and then it’s going to kill them. You know that.”

“They’re dangerous,” Ron shot back.

Harry’s fingers tightened into fists. “That’s not fair, Ron, and you know it. Ginny is less dangerous than the both of us.” Ron’s face went hard at the mention of Ginny as Harry had known it would. “She would die too.”

“She’s in Australia,” Ron said petulantly.

Harry squinted through the glare in the white room. “You think distance will protect her from _hatred_?” He stared hard at Ron. “You know better than that.”

Ron stood up, fists clenched at his sides, and he glared back at Harry hatefully. “I hate them.”

But Harry understood, and had for years, that that was far from true. “No,” he said softly, “you hate that Fred is dead, you hate that Bill is scarred, you hate that Ginny got infected, you hate the sadness that never really leaves your mum’s face. You just put all that into hating the wolves.”

Ron dragged a crumpled piece of paper out of his pocket and shoved it into Harry’s hands with little ceremony. “ _He_ doesn’t want you to do it either.” Harry smoothed it out and recognized Draco’s careful writing. “What if you end up hating each other again after a few days, or weeks, or months? He would feel obligated to stay after what you’ve given up. You’re putting mounds of pressure on him just to be worth it.” Harry stared up at Ron, shocked stupid that he had thought of all this. Ron shrugged and jerked his shoulder towards the creased paper. “In the letter he said it would be like ‘ _a chain around one another’s necks, binding you together_.’”

Ah, so these were _Draco’s_ concerns then.

“It’s not the same,” Harry said more to himself, as Ron and Hermione wouldn’t understand the justification anyway. “I wouldn’t own him. We would belong to each other.” Ron looked lost and Harry pulled himself back around to what Ron had said. “I never hated him,” he told him honestly, “so there’s nothing to go back to. I don’t care if you approve, that’s why I didn’t ask for it. I know what I’m doing, even if it doesn’t seem like it.”

Ron chuckled darkly in disbelief and Harry shifted in his chair and leaned forward. “It’s not only for him. I get it, that it would be mad to do this just to be with him. But it’s _not_ just for him.” Ron didn’t look convinced and Harry said softly, “It’s for Dennis Creevey too.” Ron paled and Harry knew that Dennis’ death had hit him nearly as hard as it had Harry. He had been one of the Aurors there and he had been the one to clean up the body. It was an argument that couldn’t be invalidated – that they, the majority, had made life for wolves so miserable that at least one of them would rather be dead. “It’s for all the Dennis Creeveys we _make_ every day.”

Ron swallowed and finally – _finally_ – he gave Harry a single nod. Harry shot up out of his seat and pulled Ron into a bear hug. Something slid back into place as Ron’s arms wrapped around him just as fiercely. Harry shot a glance over at Hermione to find her watching them with an almost wistful expression on her face.

Harry turned his head and said lowly, “I think it’s time you forgave her.”

Ron pulled back, surprise in the furrow of his brow. “There's nothing to forgive. I don’t blame her,” he said, seeming confused by the suggestion. He looked over at her for a moment and said so brokenly that Harry felt it in his bones, “I just don’t know how to be with her anymore.”

And Harry understood. He wasn’t the only one who thought Ron had changed – Ron knew it too and he didn’t know how to be the Ron that Hermione had fallen in love with anymore.

Harry’s heart broke for him.

  


Harry showed up at the club after hours and Draco looked wrecked at seeing him. Because if Harry was there it meant that he’d somehow convinced Ron and Hermione to give him their blessing. And Harry knew that Draco respected Hermione’s mind at least, if not Ron’s too. And that meant that this idea couldn’t be as horrible as Draco thought it was. Harry walked over to him purposefully and Malfoy shook his head. “I’m my own master,” he said and his voice cracked as he backed away from him. “I have to be. It’s all I’ve got left and the Ministry is tugging at it.”

“I’m not looking to take that from you,” Harry told him gently, stepping closer.

“But you would,” Malfoy said and his back pressed up against the bar. “You’d scar me again, whether you meant it or not.”

Harry smiled, wide and slow. “You know, Dumbledore once told me that scars can come in useful.” Harry leaned closer to Malfoy and whispered against his lips, “You don't have to keep fighting me.”

Malfoy whimpered but he did nothing to pull away when Harry closed the distance between them and sealed his lips over Malfoy’s. Malfoy groaned and keened against him and Harry wrapped his arms around this body that was arching into his so eagerly, a shot of joy catching him in the gut and rocketing up his throat. He was so happy he could barely stand it.

Malfoy’s hand slid around the back of his neck, his fingers playing with the ends of Harry’s hair and he opened his mouth to Harry’s questing tongue. Just the feel of Malfoy’s skin against his had his cock growing hot and heavy between his legs and he wanted this more than he could ever remember wanting anything. He pulled back and pressed his nose to Malfoy’s cheek. “You’re wrong, you know,” he said and it was an effort to get anything out through his grin. Merlin, but he couldn’t stop smiling.

Malfoy looked up at him and his own smile started to curve his lips.

“Being your own master,” Harry said, “it’s not all you have left.”

Malfoy curled his hands into Harry’s robes and tugged him closer. “This doesn’t fix anything,” Malfoy said, cynical to the very last.

But as some broken place inside of Harry healed, he could only argue, “Yes, it does.”

\- _fin_ -


End file.
